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Ultimate Despair
Ultimate Despair '''(超高校級の「絶望」''chō kōkō kyū no "zetsubō") ''or '''Junko Enoshima's servants is an organization in the Danganronpa Series founded by Junko Enoshima. Description Ultimate Despair are described as a group of people who have "become despair". As Junko describes despair as a sort of contagion/state of mind, it can be inferred that the members of Ultimate Despair are those who have been "infected" by despair. Their goal is to spread despair across the entire world, driving it into a state of self-destructive anarchy. They started The Tragedy and kept it ongoing even after their leader's death. They defied understanding and did various things for the sake of despair and Junko Enoshima: some starved themselves till their bodies were husks, some offered up their parents to Junko to use for experiments on murder, others slaughtered innocent civilians and forced them to kill themselves as a tribute to their dead leader, one removed their own eye and replaced it with Junko's, possibly to see her despair. It is theorized that it was Fuyuhiko who took her eye. It is also said some members of Ultimate Despair attempted to produce children with Junko's corpse. It is notable that although many other members might have done similar things, Nagito Komaeda is the only person whose act was fully established; he took Junko's left hand and sewed it onto himself, resulting in him having a non-functioning left hand. Another interesting fact is the majority of the people who became Ultimate Despair have their eyes turn gray spirals, red or crimson. However, this could only be a symbolism of their affiliation to despair. In Izuru Kamukura's case, his red eyes were a side effect from the project that he had taken part in. In Danganronpa 3, it is revealed that most of the members were actually brainwashed by Junko using Ryota Mitarai's brainwashing techniques and combining it with the recording of the first mutual killing game and notes on human psychology she stole from Yasuke Matsuda. However, in the case of Class 77-B, Junko combined Ryota's brainwashing techniques with a live feed of their class representative's execution instead. It's also revealed that after their brainwashing, members of Ultimate Despair still retain their original personas. However, their minds and bodies are now conditioned to follow Junko's orders and commit various acts of despair. The only ones that weren't brainwashed were Izuru, who joined out of boredom and isn't shown to be invested in despair, and Mukuro Ikusaba, who only joined Ultimate Despair out of love for her sister. Monaca Towa was also an unofficial member of Ultimate Despair, idolizing Junko until she realized just how insane Nagito was for worshiping her, frightening her into giving up trying to follow her footsteps. The only person who might joined of his free will is Ted Chikatilo as it is never explicitly stated he was brainwashed. As Remnants of Despair After their leader died in The Ultimate Punishment, most members of Ultimate Despair followed her example and committed suicide. The ones who survived became known as the Remnants of Despair (絶望の残党 zetsubō no zantō). Eventually, the Future Foundation secured the custody of fifteen of them - at first only aware that they were survivors from Hope's Peak Academy. When Makoto Naegi, by that time a member of the 14th Division of the Future Foundation, realized that the survivors were in fact, Remnants of Despair, he quickly directed them to Jabberwock Island in secret. Makoto made them enter the Neo World Program, where their memories were reset to a time prior to their entering Hope's Peak Academy, before they were manipulated by Junko - resulting in most of them not recognizing each other. The plan was to overwrite their memories of themselves as Ultimate Despair, replacing them with good ones in order to undo all the damage Junko had done to them. Unfortunately, this plan ended in failure, due to Junko's interference as a virus AI was uploaded by Izuru Kamukura right before they were put into the program. As a result, they ended up experiencing the same violent event that befell the Class of 78, albeit in a realistically-simulated environment. This came to be known as the Killing School Trip. By the end of the incident, ten of the original fifteen ended up comatose. The ending of the Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair heavily implied that even though the Neo World Program did not erase any memories, the remnants of Ultimate Despair who had made it out of the Neo World Program have kept their memories from inside the Neo World Program, and were assumed to have recanted their beliefs in the concept of despair itself, thus leading them to abandon their status as Ultimate Despair. The surviving Remnants of Despair currently reside on Jabberwock Island and are attempting to find a way to awaken their comatose friends, while the Future Foundation left them alone and continued cleaning up the world and putting an end to The Tragedy. At the very least it did undo all of Junko's brainwashing which allowed them to regain control and Izuru's original self as Hajime. After the events of Danganronpa 2, ''the Remnants of Despair still active in the world are few and in disarray for both their decrease in number and their loss of prominent members, like Junko and Izuru. They are described as on the verge of extinction by Monokuma. However, they still continued with their terrorist activities, managing to carry out forty attacks in only a month. On Jabberwock Island, Hinata, encountering a large fleet of warships, is shown to still have red eyes due to side effects of the Forced Shutdown that didn't erase his memories as Izuru. Member Relationships In general, while the organization was active, many of its members have professed their love for Junko, but there are extreme variations of their professions of love. One prominent example of this is when Mikan Tsumiki, who had contracted Despair Disease within the Neo World Program, ended up remembering who she really was before being sent into the Neo World Program, and then proceeded to kill Ibuki Mioda and the unfortunate Hiyoko Saionji; when she was finally identified as the blackened, she proceeded to profess her love for Junko in a way that nobody was able to understand at all. The contrast to that would be Nagito, whose machinations in Towa City to "'devote''' himself to despair" stems from hatred towards despair, ironic considering that he was a member of Ultimate Despair. His motive is revealed that, just like his motive for trying to start Monokuma's Mutual Killing Game in Danganronpa 2, he wanted create a great despair in order to give birth to a great hope. Of note is that Ultimate Despair was divided in ranks (mentioned by Mukuro Ikusaba in Danganronpa IF), so it was quite improbable that Izuru, one of the most prominent members of the organization, and Nagito, considered as simple "small fry", would have known each other despite their common origin. This stemmed from the fact that Izuru had neither any idea of, or any interest in, Nagito or his Ultimate Ability, despite Nagito being aware of Izuru's existence. Their relationships with Junko never seemed to extend beyond idolatry. The Remnants of Despair became that purely because Junko had died, and the act of sewing her body parts onto themselves forcibly is evidence of idolization. Junko has never professed any kind of love for any of the members of Ultimate Despair, save for her own sister Mukuro, but this was because she would, instead, induce "despair" in them in the name of love. What is very clear, however, is that while members are mostly disparate, separated units who may choose to act alone (which they often do, as evidenced in the uprising in Towa City), their main goal was always to spread despair. Known Members (Whether the members in comatose will wake up or denounce their status as Ultimate Despair is currently unknown.) Trivia *The Japanese word 残党 zantō used as "remnants" in the Japanese name of the "Remnants of Despair" is actually a more specific term meaning "remnants of a defeated faction/political party". This alludes to the fact that Ultimate Despair was an organization, and that the survivors of the Neo World Program defeated Junko. *Monaca Towa is the only unofficial member of the Ultimate Despair. She has shown several similarities to the official Ultimate Despair members from their obsession to Junko and despair to their mission to spread despair. They also display the same amount of insanity when it comes to spreading despair or displaying love for Junko. Although she gave up following her footsteps after realizing one of followers is insane. *The reason why Class 77's true nature was not revealed initially is due to them having faked their death, and thus taken off the list of protected students. Their memories of Izuru Kamukura/Hajime Hinata was also removed by Junko upon his request, as he believed it will be boring if they knew each other. Category:Organizations Category:Antagonists